


'til the night turns into the day

by hikaristudio



Category: Kamen Rider Zi-O
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Other, Slice of Life, buzzfeed unsolved inspired, feat. the decade ot4 as tsukoyomi's parents theory, that only 2 of us care about really, where they get to just chill and stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-05-13 11:02:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19249870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hikaristudio/pseuds/hikaristudio
Summary: Still, he had that animated look in his eye that said: don't stop him now, he was already on a roll while he was talking, and even if they didn't agree with it, he would simply find another way to make his plan happen and in that case trying to chase after him was a lot harder.





	'til the night turns into the day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sapoeysap](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapoeysap/gifts).



> this fic is loosely based off buzzfeed unsolved but not really, it's more like light flavoring in that 'the zio ot4 does ghost/demon hunting and films it'. more like set dressing?? the title comes from lord huron's 'until the night turns' but the whole strange trails album was used to channel the spooky vibe. hope you like it!

Tsukoyomi puts her head in her hands when she hears about Sougo's plan around the same time Geiz stares blankly into the distance. She tilts her head but knows that this plan of his has been kicking around in his mind for months, plans start a demon hunting club because he'd brought it up to her regardless of the context of their conversations to see how she'd respond, and then how Geiz would respond, who scoffed at anything to do with ghosts. It's five minutes now, and it was a miracle how he managed to enunciate clearly and eat at the same time. The spiel began as soon as the lunch bell rang, cornering the two of them at their regular table a distance from everyone else and right under the shade. Many questions pop up in her head, the first of which being: if it's a club, would it be on school grounds? and would the school even let them to open a club especially if it had to do with ghosts and demons and wasn’t an enrichment of the curriculum? Secondly, out of all the questions she thought of, she was wondering where he'd even find the demons they would be investigating. The city had nothing interesting occur within it, outside of the tragic freak accident that caused Sougo to lose his parents but that wasn't within the city limits. The city itself was still, quiet.

 

Still, he had that animated look in his eye that said: don't stop him now, he was already on a roll while he was talking, and even if they didn't agree with it, he would simply find another way to make his plan happen, and in that case trying to chase after him was a lot harder. It was better to stick by his side with his ghost-hunting schemes, lest he somehow cause his own accident and end up being the ghost because of his absent-mindedness.

 

"And so begins the Hikarigamori's first ever ghost hunting club," Sougo finishes. "It'll just be for us, not in school."

 

"So why call it Hikarigamori -," she begins, letting her voice trails off before she shakes her head. "Nevermind."

 

"Well at least you won't tell the school," Geiz mutters under his breath, one of his hands over his eyes.

 

"And look! I've already got the stuff," he points to the things in his bag that are two black rectangles. She picks it up and weighs it in her hand, it almost looks like a remote. "It's an EMF reader, supposedly it'll pick up the energy a ghost has left behind and this is to collect the voice that the ghosts leaves behind. And here's the recorder. We can check that temple that's like a few minutes away from my house. We're gonna be the best ghost hunters in Japan!"

 

"Where did you get these?" She looks, picking the equipment up. Geiz looks like he's ready to bash his head against the table or grab Sougo by the neck to tell him to use his brain. Instead, Geiz puts his hands further into his hands just as she tilts her head, tries to remember why the temple pokes at some old memories.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The day goes by like the day always goes by, with Sougo half-asleep on his desk, Geiz half-attentive to the class and half looking out towards the windows, while she attempts to take all the notes necessary because she will inevitably have to explain the concepts to both of them, who have retained about fifteen percent of the lecture at all times. The bell rings with Sougo shooting up like lightning struck him and immediately leaving, grabbing her and Geiz by the hand and leading them out.

 

"We're going now?" Geiz says.

 

"Well, we have to see it before we go there after dinner too," he says.

 

"But I'm hungry," she whines and tugs at his hand on their way to the temple.

 

"I'll buy you something to eat after we see it, c'mon," he says. She lets herself be lead away from the path of the imagawayaki vendor, staring mournfully at it.

 

The temple is one that they've walked by multiple times, on the way back home because Sougo's home was on the way to where they were. The three of them had fallen in together by being the only age appropriate friends within walking distance. Her home was closer to Sougo's whereas Geiz was a longer walk away, living with his older brother, from Sougo's uncle clock shop-house. It was a rather nondescript part of the city, where the foot traffic was less but still had plenty of people come into his uncle's shop looking for non-clock related needs. The temple was one they'd seen many times and had shown up for new year's and other things. First, it used to be visited for the memory of Sougo's parents who died in an accident, later, it became where they took Geiz with them in memory of his parents as well. So the path was nothing they hadn't already walked on, but something about it felt different this time - maybe it's because Sougo has decided that this place has ghost energy he thinks he's going to find, but mainly she thinks it's because she hasn't had a snack.

 

It wasn't odd that the three of them came together. It was Sougo who came to both of them when they were eight, had extended his friendship to the both of them and it was Sougo who was unwittingly become the heart of them. Sougo's uncle was the only person who wasn't nosy when he saw four adults living with a child move in a few doors away from him, and Sougo thought having four parents was the coolest thing if hard because 'which dad would you ask for something'. Geiz's brother had just turned 18 when their parents died, had come to this part where the rent was cheaper than other parts of the city with his younger brother. Sougo had also come up to him, ignoring the other children's whisper about him and had managed to rope them into his insane plans of becoming king and enlist them as royal advisors, to a really terrible garage band for a short period of time. There was also a weird period of time where both Sougo and Geiz were weirded out about being friends with a girl before she beat them with her shoes and backpack that that brief period of friendship was smoothed that out. The three of them tried to do most things together.

 

Well - most things, except for dating each other - which did not happen within each other because of the carefully maintained relationship that was Sougo saying they were the three musketeers, and then somehow, the other two decided that they broach the concept of a romantic relationship with each other - she hadn't thought of them like that early on, but she knew that they had viewed her like that, as she found out during the fiasco about three years ago. And there had been that one time where Geiz and her had dated the same idiot inadvertently who never came to class, who she thought about at random point in time but between that, and the fact that she enjoyed their company too much, that she didn't want to mess it up, it was a topic never broached. Also partially to do with the frustration was when Geiz’s crush on Sougo blossomed in the summer before their last year began. For a relationship they tried to keep platonic, it seemed that only Sougo felt that way towards them, while she had to listen to Geiz's grumblings and her own bottled up feelings for the two of them. 

 

"This is it," Sougo says, breaking her thought process. "We need to know this place before tonight."

 

"We have a test tomorrow," Geiz says flatly.

 

"You'll be fine," Sougo pats his arm as he goes forward and Geiz's nostrils flared as he does so, watching at the boy goes forward. She puts a hand on his other arm to remind Geiz of where they are, that fighting at a temple was typically frowned upon. They follow him, their steps soft on the steps. Someone had come by recently, given the burning incense holder had smoke wafting around.

 

"Today we're going to check the local temple," Sougo pulls out his phone, his camera facing them with what looks like a selfie-stick attached to it, and she moves from the incense to the phone Sougo took out and was speaking into. Around the temple is a slight incline and a burgeoning forest around them. She puts this down because while there were steps that had railing, the hill and forest that the temple was in was easier to cut through sometimes. Just in case someone tried to come at them from the side, because Sougo's voice did carry and people did make fun of his ideas. She raised her eyebrows, getting a nod from Sougo as he talked around them, moving around the temple to get 'different angles' in his words. Geiz is right beside Sougo, interjecting with level commentary about how the temple has no ghosts and he was being ridiculous.

 

She leaves to get the imagawayaki she was denied, the back of her neck tingling like she's being watched. The vendor, a kind older woman, tells her that it's fresh while she shakes off the feeling that's stolen through her and pays. The walk back towards the path towards the temple is uneventful until she hears the step of someone on a leave and whirls back to see who it is. She catches only a blur in the corner of her eye and moves towards the blur quickly before thinking better of it - it was probably some animal, but apparently, Sougo's ghost talk had unnerved her more than she realized. She hurries back to the rising voices of Geiz and Sougo, the faint slap of Geiz's hand connecting against Sougo's bare-arm, a yelp coming from Sougo. She smiles inwardly a little at their behavior.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The three of them meet outside of the clock shop, Sougo taking care to be quiet as his uncle was in the back working. She had told all four of her parents that she was going out, who had simply stared back and nodded at her to be careful just as Natsumi pressed a pepper spray into her hands while she walked out.

 

"Everyone ready?" She asks. Sougo nods, lifting his backpack with all the gadgets inside and goes ahead of them. Geiz grabs the flashlight from Sougo's hands, leading the way as they all walked. Sougo grabs her hand in his as he sticks his hand out, selfie-stick and all, and his voice rises as they go further from the clock shop.

 

The brightness of the day faded into an inky blackness of night, and while she didn't fear the dark, it didn't stop the three of them from walking in a tight formation that was Sougo in the middle, Geiz to his right and her to the left, with her own hand curved tight around her pepper spray. Her other hand was stuck in Sougo's firmly, his grip surprisingly sure. The night made shadows look bigger than normal for a split second before she shook out the nerves. _Pull it together,_ she chastised herself as Sougo looked at home in the darkness, the combined brightness of his phone backlight and the flashlight Geiz held leading them towards the temple. Sougo drops her hand as he swings his backpack in front of him at the steps of the temple to take out the EMF and EVP readers out, handing one to her and holding the other.

 

Turning it on as indicating, a faint thrumming begins to come out as they walk around the temple, her and Sougo falling into steps so the flashlight beam can light both of them and neither of them is at risk of falling down the stairs.

 

"Do you wonder that maybe this thing is beeping is because people have lit the incense so if any theoretical ghosts were here they may have been called towards here already?" She says. There's nothing particularly scary about the temple right now - she'd seen it during the day, and the night just made everything harder to see - but she can't help but feel that this is possibly one of Sougo's worst ideas of time spent. She could be getting her dads to teach her how to throw someone over her.

 

"Yeah!" Sougo turns to her excitedly, "That'd still means that this place has activity that was called upon by us and could further bring in more ghosts." Geiz sighs from the side just as she tilts her head. The flashlight beam falters while they're doing a sweep of the temple, their shadows and the surrounding ones growing exponentially. It's themselves and the objects around the temple. The big centerpiece that is half obscured, which is all fine, until they notice a silhouette of another man within the temple where she shrieks first. Geiz, who was doing a lazy sweep of the flashlight, swings the lamp towards the area where she had shouted and jumps in front of her. They see the shadow leaving. They shout at the exact same time as she tries to let her eyes adjust to the lack of light to where the stranger has gone to see if she can catch the fourth visitor.

 

"Who is that?" Geiz yells as Sougo jumps, their words jumbling together as they all rise to above each other be heard just as her hammer jackrabbits inside her heart.

 

"We're going," she switches the EVP reader off, tucking it under her and immediately locking her arms between Sougo and Geiz and dragging them away from the temple.

 

"But -," Sougo says as she takes them down the steps hurriedly, making the two fall into step with her and get away from whatever is happening here.

 

"No ghost hunting today," she whisper-shouts back them, their stumbling stopping as they realize she wasn't about to stop here and walking in tandem to get down and run down the road home.

 

"I wanted to see who that was," Sougo says as they run back home. She doesn't stop even as Geiz twists in her arm to smack Sougo in the back of the head behind her while he lets out a sharp 'ow.' The ghost talk was really getting to them, and while she'd rather not see an actual ghost, there's something a bit worrisome about how the two strange occurrences took place today. She pushes the thought away as they're halfway on the road away from temple and loosens her arm grip from them to switch to grabbing their hands with her own and leads them forward.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The next day at school is spent between her staring into the distance, turning over all of yesterday and trying to figure out whether the "ghosts" were ghosts, or someone with a particularly annoying sense of humor. She thinks of Woz, for some reason after she went home, wondering if the slim silhouette she had briefly seen was him or her brain tricking her. She had no reason to think of him, and there was no explanation of why he would be there, but for the first time in weeks, she wonders where he could be. She had asked her father as he worked with the pink camera in his hands, taking the film out to inspect it, if maybe he had overheard her before she went out.

 

"I don't terrorize kids," he said, which made her pause. "Not anymore," he added, ruffling her hair. "And even if I did, I certainly wouldn't terrorize my own daughter with the group. I’d do it when you weren’t there."

 

Geiz poured over the notes she had written down for the calculus test they had after lunch, muttering to himself as he tried to learn 2 weeks of notes in a couple of minutes. It was going pretty well all things considered, but Geiz had a freak-ish memory of being able to retain most things after seeing it once.

 

"See, there are ghosts!" Sougo says in a too pleased tone after he finally left the teacher he was talking to. It's Schwartz, who didn't necessarily like them, but somehow managed to not fail Sougo out of his class that's done with Sougo doing odd assignments for him, like finding a piece of a watch that wasn't made anymore. He sits down across from them. She wasn't scared really, but more annoyed. She made her other dad tell her about fake scary things to calm down the night before when her adrenaline went through the roof, and she wasn't in the mood for this conversation. She had to know who on earth was causing the scares so she could hit them with her shoe for the irritation they caused.

 

"Or, it was someone messing with us," Geiz says as he shoves at Sougo's arm, who rubs at it but doesn't let the smile drop down his face. She gives him a questioning look as he shrugs, watching as Sougo stands to leave their table elsewhere. She watches him leave a distance away, turning her head back to Geiz.

 

"I think it was Woz," he says when Sougo's out of earshot.

 

"Why Woz?" Her head picks up, eyebrow raised. Geiz didn't mention Woz when he could help it, so bringing him up meant something bad was happening. It wasn't the odd part that they'd dated the same person, but rather how devastated it left Geiz so much so that she had vowed to enact a royal ass-kicking on him if she ever saw him. 

 

"Does he need a reason?"

 

"Well, no, but I just assumed he would have a reason. Sougo's voice does carry but enough that he'd know? We haven't even seen him in our usual classes or here."

 

"I'm just saying, I think it might be Woz. I thought of it when I went back home and it makes sense - mess with us, mess with Sougo."

 

"You're not just saying that because you're still mad about the other stuff? It could be Uhr and Aura, we know they like to mess with Sougo as well."

 

"No I'm still mad about _that_ but that's something else. This is just a pain in my ass," he says and she nods in agreement. They turn back to see Sougo, hearing his voice carry from where he's at which is further away and closer to the south side of the school. They cover their food to go walk towards him, Sougo laughing at something someone they couldn't see had said. He turns immediately as they're nearing him, the shadow on the wall. The slim silhouette is there again, making her think that maybe Woz on her mind was like a shitty superpower of premonition when it came to him. 

"Who was it?"

 

"Just some guy, he wants to know about my ghost hunting."

 

"Some guy?" They ask, looking at each other with raised eyebrows.

 

"You guys think I talked to a ghost?" he grins at them. "I don't actually know who it was. I didn't ask his name," he lifts his shoulder up and walks back to their lunch. The two of them narrow their eyes at each other as he goes ahead, blissfully unaware. He says something that she misses, a cheerful "we'll return back at night," as the two of them twist around him to see the figure he had just spoken to.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The moment when Geiz and Sougo acted like every other idiot boy in middle school because they thought guys and girls couldn't be friends was around the same time she had dated Woz. He was definitely not the first boyfriend she imagined herself having but he was interesting. It's not like there was much to the relationship anyway, all she needed someone who wasn't someone she had history with and he was a recently transferred student coming from Europe. There was an odd rumor of him having a twin too that wore white, but given that she never saw it, she chalked it up to student gossip.  They made out about twenty-five percent of the time and then the rest of the seventy-five percent was walks around the city and sitting closer to each other in the back of the classroom sending each other notes. It ended as it began, with little fanfare, and not much to say before he resurfaced with a couple of curious whispers and that was it.

 

Then, Woz disappeared, but that wasn't so much worrisome because there were a couple of weeks that he disappeared in the beginning of the semester ever since he transferred to Hikarigamori. The real mystery was how he managed to pass onto the next year but the even more confusing part was when he _didn't_ come back until closer to the end of the year and in that time he was gone, had somehow moved to dating _Geiz._ And she didn't even care if they dated each other, he could do whatever he wanted but Geiz was _her friend_ first and to date him soon after her was baffling to her. Of course, she didn't know this until after they finished dating and Geiz was surlier than normal, she had to throw water on him to get him to stop being angry and moping and speak to her.

 

Mainly, she was more upset that he wasn't talking to anyone, and still had an attitude when she tried to ask. They never really talked about that in depth outside of the one conversation they had after, but the understanding was there that if she saw Woz she'd probably kick him for Geiz and he'd do the same for her.

 

"You think he's possessed?" Geiz throws a paper to her side as Sougo's asleep in front of her. She shrugs. They had finished their tests and had flipped them over - Sougo, who went by his immediately and then went back to sleep, did not notice the paper Geiz flicked at him too that was piling up on the corner of his desk.

 

"Could be, _if_ ghosts were real," she says quietly, throwing the paper back as Schwartz watches over the class that no one is cheating. He glares in her direction as she turns her head away from the board towards the windows. If they could turn in their exams and leave, that wouldn't be a problem, she muses.

 

"That was weird though, wasn't it? Some guy speaks to him, asking about his stuff and then disappearing before we see it."

 

"It was probably Uhr being weird, or something, I don't know," she waves him off, still keeping her voice low. The two of them clam up and stare straight ahead silently when the teacher looks up sharply, hearing someone's pencil clatter to the floor.

 

"What do we do if it _is_ Woz?" Geiz asks. The tone of his voice reminds her of how devastated Geiz looked after the breakup, the mumbled sound of 'I kissed Sougo afterward, and he didn't kiss back' echoes. She pushes the thought to the side, focusing on the promised retribution against Woz instead.  

 

"We chase him off," she replies, a gleeful look brightening in Geiz's eyes and the rest of the class shoots up, finishing their exam when the bell rings. Sougo shoots up, turns to look at them and goes forward to turn in his work as he waits for them at the door.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

"Let me know if you want me to scare someone," her dad calls from the back as she walks out the door, rolling her eyes.

"Let me go too," says her other dad, polishing what looks like the blaster her mom said was banned from the house. She touches their shoulders as she leaves, Sougo and Geiz waiting for her as she does so.

 

"Boys," they gives them both a stern look from a distance. She's not quite sure how her dad managed to perfect a look that made people simultaneously pay attention to what he was saying and also annoy them deeply. Her mom frequently jabbed him in the neck if he ever did it to her, or her other dads. She waves towards them and runs off with the other two, Geiz and Sougo taking one of her other hands. 

 

It's a little bit earlier in the night now than it was yesterday, but if the sunset's rapid descent is any indication, they'd probably have a similar scenario of yesterday but with the added advantage of being able to see someone

 

"Please don't run after the person if we do see them, Sougo," she says as they walk up to the temple steps. The sun bleeds into the night, a darkness stealing through the sky. The three of them click their flashlights on, cutting through the darkness with three beams. Sougo's zipper rustles as he reaches into the backpack to take out the readers, handing her the EVP and taking the EMF for himself; Geiz on alert, looking around them and in the shadows to see if the person who had come out yesterday was still here.

 

"We're here for some more hauntings," Sougo says to his camera, his voice drifting around them as Geiz interjects, "It's not _haunted,_ it's a temple, don't you think any hypothetical ghosts would be annoyed by you doing this in their own homes?"

 

"You believe in the hypothetical ghosts!" Sougo says as Geiz shouts back, "I do not, I'm just saying they wouldn't like this."

 

She's not sure where he's even holding the camera among the many things in his hands while she wanders with the EVP. She too is paying attention, but not to the temple, but the exterior where the trees surround them and anyone could come in from the outside without anyone of them knowing. She's on the lookout for someone - not Woz, she thinks, but Aura. It's more her style to be waiting in the darkness to come out and mess with them. Still, she cannot be sure of who she's looking for, so she keeps half her attention directed towards the surroundings and the other half is between the reader and seeing if the crackling noise changes. Sougo and Geiz bicker for a few minutes more, her guard lowering as she returns back to the circle they have together, listening to the EVP and EMF rise higher in tune as they converge in closer, trying to read the scanners.

 

"Is it something?" She raises an eyebrow at Sougo, who simply whacks the reader against his palm twice and shakes his head. One moment he is shaking his head and the next, a rustle occurs nearby at the same time the meter starts picking up a louder frequency that the three of them lift their heads up in sync when another silhouette crosses their flashlight beams.

 

Geiz shoves himself in front of her and Sougo, who is somehow screaming, as her own hand moves towards the pepper spray and Sougo's lower shouting clearing out all other thoughts from her brain. He grabs onto her other hand and clutching to the back of Geiz's hand. The fourth silhouette from yesterday steps directly into their light just as she fumbles with the cap of her pepper spray and lets out a feral noise, pressing down on it as the silhouette jumps back from her, letting out a coughing-hacking noise.

 

"Hello," the man says from the steps he's taken back, stepping into their flashlights as it registers. The boy, really, steps forward and she can see the slim silhouette that had appeared in the corner of her eyes and her brain fills the rest of the details, such as the green-beige coat and rolls her eyes.

 

"Woz!"

 

"Woz?" Sougo asks, tilting his head at them.

 

"You," Geiz growls and backs them all up, trying to get them away. "We should go now."

 

"Wait," Sougo falters as he pushes the two of them forward and towards the house, just as she turns back to look at Woz standing.

 

"Go away," she says, Geiz bodily hauling Sougo away. She shines her flashlight directly into his face, Woz blinking a little before shielding his eyes from her flashlight. She lowers it down - she wasn't a cruel person to blind someone for fun, annoyed at Woz's appearance now of all times. She wasn't dumb as to think that Woz wouldn't resurge sometime before they graduated, but now was not the best of times. Not especially when all he brought along was drama. 

 

"I was interested," he says as she turns to face him, blocking Sougo and Geiz's retreating forms away from him as he tries to lean around her.

 

"In ghost hunting?"

 

He tilts his head, looking around the temple. "Has its charms."

 

"Right," she nods, making a face. "So I take it it was you who talked to Sougo at school earlier?"

 

"Me?" He questions, pointing a finger at himself in shock. She rolls her eyes again as drops his finger and nods. "Well, who else would it be?"

 

"Just stay away from him," she says, swinging her flashlight up on her shoulder.

 

"I don’t think I will. Besides, what will you do? You jealous, Tsukuyomi?"

 

"Hardly," she scoffs. "It's a bit hard to be jealous of ghost." She blinks, tilting her own head at the word choice and walks away, flashlight shining her path as she takes the steps two at a time. "I mean, who dates their ex's best friend and then disappears on their next boyfriend the exact same way they did for their first ex?" She calls back. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Her mom doesn't look up as she enters her door, slipping her shoes off at the entrance, chopping something. She doesn't know what it is, besides the fact that it smells good and her other dad is at the stove delegating to her what to chop and when he needs it.

 

"How were your ghosts?" She calls up, her dad turning to her and giving her a big grin. She gives him a smaller smile, tired as she pulls up beside her mom. She picks at what she can, taking her hand away when she's rapped with the blunt side of the knife on her knuckles.

 

"They're not my ghosts, and they weren't there," she says.

 

"Then why do you look like you have a ghost?" her mom replies.

 

"Saw my old boyfriend there," she responds back, picking at the ginger that's been tossed aside. It pricks her fingertips, dropping it back down.

 

"Oh," her mom wrinkles her nose. She never said as much, but she never liked him. None of her dads did, actually, but they knew better than to interfere in her personal life. Woz was a little bit weirder than they were, but it was different than the same people she had known. Transferring over from overseas, his introduction was a brief stint wearing a white beret and coat for a little bit, and he immediately took the spotlight. Someone new and exciting from somewhere else raised many questions, none of which he answered. She was curious about him in a way that she hadn’t been curious in a while, this small town being familiar to her that she didn’t enjoy. And when she and the guys had their break from each other, it was Woz who she turned to. Who she’d given her first kiss (third, technically, but the really terrible peck she, Geiz and Sougo dared each other to give when they were younger didn’t count, and it was certainly different from the way Woz kissed when she was older and actually more interested in kissing.)

 

He was mysterious and odd, and frequently took her to different parts around the city, but never to his home. When she brought up her multiple parents, he got a faraway look in his eye before turning back to her, pretending as if he had answered the question about his life by deflecting towards taking her to the movies. It was like she was dating a ghost because when they broke up, he left as if they hadn’t been together for a few months, stopped coming to classes, with only a few annoying comments from Aura a reminder that the relationship even existed. She knew he had just a dad but she never knew him like he knew about all four of her parents, how her old best friends had taken a break from each other, how it felt like she was unimportant to them in a way that really hurt. However, her mom had different feelings, curious about how he could tell them stories about what he did in France but never anything about what was happening in his life. She told her that she liked Geiz and Sougo better and had made it very clear she wouldn't have minded either one but she knew that she couldn't quite see her friends in a romantic light, especially not when they were people she has seen eat dirt when they were younger, or make gross fart jokes and definitely not after they pushed her out. She was their daughter, not a complete child, and she could handle her personal stuff.

 

"So yeah," she raises her eyebrows, "It was weird. But it was weirder seeing he was there trying to,  I don't know, spook Sougo? Go ghost hunting?"

 

"And what's wrong with that? I thought you weren't entirely interested in the ghosts Sougo wanted to see," her mom motions for her to pass the onions on her side towards her.

 

"He's a flake, mom, he doesn't stick around. And he's also dated Geiz too, and he made him really unhappy when he left. I just don't want to see Sougo hurt like that," she folds her arms. She doesn't add that she's still upset about how Sougo and Geiz were a unit, in the way that her and Geiz were a unit but talked to each other more than her and were far more into each other than they were when she was there. But that wasn't anything new, she knew. It was always there and had simply grown after the breakup.

 

"I see," her mom says, chopping quickly and then scraping the onions off for the next. She makes quick work of the cabbage head in front of her, chopping it into quarters and eighths and then dicing the eighth pieces into smaller strips. "You're just looking out for them."

 

"Someone has to," she sighs.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The thing that she also is worried about is that Geiz is _Geiz_ , and he's very hard to read even on his best days. But she knows that he is intensely loyal, and he doesn't do feelings in half measures - it's an all or nothing situation. So when Woz broke up with him, it was fine, but it was the utter abruptness of it all that got to him - he'd written him a note and disappeared.

 

The other thing is that he'd never liked Sougo like that until just recently, and even that could be a stretch because for as much trouble he got into, Geiz had never been an unwilling partner when it came to him. He grumbled and grouched, but he always followed him, with a type of exasperated fondness that leaned more exasperated in some days. It wasn't that Woz dumping him had unearthed emotions he never paid attention to. It was that he finally realized it when Sougo had hugged him tightly one day unprompted and made him go throw rocks at the water and had asked his uncle for some clocks that were never to be used again, because of the intense damage or that the owner never came back for it, and handed Geiz a stick to unleash his frustrations on it; she knows this because Geiz told her.

 

Her feelings were complicated in that she loved them, truly with her whole heart, but she didn't think it was a love that could be translated romantically at least from them to her. The history was too much, and they'd been terrible to each other in those months they hadn't spoken, she couldn't see them with her romantically because she didn't want to, not when she loved them both and it felt that they didn’t love her back in the way she wanted to be. In her head, it couldn't work when it seemed that, despite the fact that he could be denser than cements, Sougo had feelings for Geiz in a way she didn't think he felt towards her.

 

So Woz may have been a terrible first dating experience but her antipathy for him was more for what he'd done to Geiz than her, how it put into focus how little these relationships meant to him than it did to them, and how it really felt that she was an after thought especially after the friend split with her. She cared _so damn much_ and it felt it wasn't reciprocated. It was harder to find someone Sougo actually disliked, and Geiz was a prickly person by nature so getting to know him despite the bluster meant _a lot_ and she could roll with the punches a lot easier than both of them could. At heart, they were a lot kinder than anyone could realize. She does what she has always down and pushed down the feelings of fondness deeper within herself, trying to not let herself feel what she has always felt.

 

Woz returns back to campus hanging around Sougo. She folds her arms the whole time, all but civil, but it doesn't stop her from glaring at him when the others aren't look. They make conversation when they have to, but overall, he speaks to Sougo and she speaks to Geiz and Geiz will speak to Sougo and ignore Woz. She doesn't think that Sougo knew of their history because he kept trying to get them to befriend each other. She put down Geiz's hand, lifting a chopstick, back on the table as she smiles and shakes her head. She closes her hand over his hand fist, Geiz looking at her briefly as he unshake his hand and holds her hand in a death grip underneath the table.

 

She wishes Woz could go back to the time where he was skipping classes.

 

 

* * *

 

 

"Oh my god, he's trying to ask him out," Geiz says, lying down on her lap while she scribbles down an equation. Sougo had to retake a test and the two of them waited outside, his movement messing up her penmanship.

 

"Damnit," she curses and then looks at Geiz with widening eyes. "Yes! He is! Didn't you get that from when he appeared?"

 

"I thought he was interested in the ghosts actually," Geiz mutters, as she picks up her notebook to hit him on the arm.

 

"Yes, he has been trying to date him, and I've known and tried to put myself in between them but you know Sougo, he can't help but try and befriend everyone. So I need you to pull it together and get your feelings together to help me find a way to stop Woz from trying to date him."

 

"I don't have feelings for Sougo," Geiz sputters. She makes a face and prepares to hit him with her notebook while he shouts, indignant and ducking away from her.

 

"I know you do, now if you can just admit that to yourself and get over that we can deal with this thing that is Woz trying to date him!"

 

"What about you, won't this be weird for you? Considering, I don't know everything? Wouldn't helping two of your friends get together be weird?"

 

"Why would that be weird?" She pushes her hair behind her ear, leveling him with a stare. Geiz stares back, opening his mouth and closing it like a fish. 

 

"Because we're the musketeers? Who would you be with?"

 

"That's not important," she shakes her head, closing her notebook. 

 

"It is thought Tsukoyomi, it's all together or not at all. Can you imagine the third person who'd have to run interference if the other two broke up?"

 

"Can you imagine pushing feelings deep down and pretending they're not there and convincing yourself that's an okay way to behave?" Geiz holds his hands up as she raises her notebook to smack him again, pulling her in for a hug. She tenses in his arms before relaxing, folding him in another hug and positioning her wrist to hit him with the notebook. 

 

"How long have you felt like this?"

 

"Since a while." 

 

"And you never said anything?"

 

"How do you say, I want to date both of you when both of you are so in each other's...orbit, other things don't capture your attention."

 

"You matter," he pulled away from her. "I'm sorry if it feels like you haven't, but you're so much more put together than either of us, you also won't get us killed in a harebrained plan." She rolls her eyes but pulls away from him. 

 

"Ow," Geiz mutters.  "So you'll help me stop Woz from dating him? You'll try to make this work with us?" She barely stops herself from hitting him on the forehead before nodding. A wide grin breaks out in his face shortly after before he schools it with one of his scowl. "Just stop hitting me. You hit a lot harder than you should," he grumbles.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Geiz tries his hardest to distract Sougo from Woz, which is actually working in the way that Sougo lets himself be dragged by Geiz. The physical contact between them was easy, as it was always Sougo getting within Geiz's space and hugging him casually, touching him as well as herself in ways she realized wasn't the same with others. He was a tactile person by nature, and his tactility was directed towards the two of them that they became inclined to be tactile towards each other. Sougo also enjoyed it whenever Geiz would slam him against a wall for no good despite her worry that they'd probably injury each other in a stupid way. She helped too, pulling Sougo along to try a new vendor that popped up at the corner, flicking him on the forehead when he zoned out. She stuck her arm around his, Sougo looking down and grinning as he let her pull them away.

 

The specter that was Woz was there too, and he'd steal Sougo away when they weren't paying attention. The thing was that Woz was more at school when he wanted to distract Sougo from them because Sougo would never willingly skip school unless he wanted his uncle to be worried about him. So she and Geiz had to put up with Woz right in front of them with Sougo, throwing papers at each other and Sougo catching it quickly when the teacher turned to them.

 

Geiz throws a paper to her as she slumps forward on her hand, watching Woz's face as he watched Sougo. She blinks, picking up the balled up piece of paper beside her. _We should throw him off the temple stairs_ , he wrote. She balls up the paper in her hands and turns to Geiz, a stern look on her face before her lips curve upward at Geiz's look of innocence. She feigns a coughing fit to cover her laugh, Geiz sticking his head in between his hands as his body shakes with laughter. Sougo turns to look at them from the side, as does Woz while she tries to calm her laughter to look up and level a glare at Woz.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Ghost-hunting with Woz is a bit like having cats and dogs in the same room. They decided to go further away from the city and into the country-side, taking her car while Sougo continued to talk. Geiz leaned backwards to where Sougo was and flicked at him in front of the camera, while Woz leaned closer into Sougo.

 

"You guys knew each other," Sougo says as soon as he turns off his video, "How come I didn't know this? I wish you'd told me you guys were friends.

 

"I'm a bit of a private person," Woz begins. Tsukoyomi looks up at her rearview mirror,her eyes connecting to the backseat where Woz is at and visibly rolls her eyes. Geiz leans back, snorts as Sougo's eyes volley between the two of them.

 

"He wasn't _my friend_ ," Geiz sniffs and turns away. "Besides, not all of your friends will get along Sougo. Sometimes, _some_ people are just assholes."

 

The mountain area they're going to is, supposedly, a place where you can see a tengu from Sougo's research. She doesn't put much stock in the hauntings because the websites look a bit too dated and a couple of posts on twitter crossposted from weibo don't inspire confidence. The mountains are further than she realized, but suddenly it's just a long winding road and green all around them, and a hike up to the mountain. They pile out of her car as she locks it and Sougo turns on his camera.

 

"We're out here trying to find a tengu. Local folklore says that a tengu is a bird-like creature that tricks humans but this is a total over simplification of thousands of years. The important part is that it's a bird, it can shapeshift. Sometimes they abduct people too! Also it grants wishes. Supposedly, there's a tengu right around this area and we're about to see if we can find one, maybe I'll ask it if I can be a king," Sougo laughs as he leads them ahead on their trail. Woz follows behind him as she and Geiz turn on their flashlights and trail behind them.

 

"We can kill him by throwing him off this trail when we're coming back and no one will ever know," Geiz mutters to her. She lets out a snort-giggle, shining her flashlight as she places her hand within Geiz's and swings it back and forth. The mountain has an opening to a cave as they go up on their trail and that's where they go, Sougo nudging Woz with his elbow to shine his flashlight.  The cave is cold and slightly damp, the air thicker within here than the night time air they came out of.

 

"Tengu if you're here, give us a sign!" Sougo says, holding his camera out.  

 

"This is a horrible idea," Geiz replies drily, stepping forward to where he and Woz stand. Their flashlights shine around the caves, revealing absolutely nothing outside of echoes and a faint firewood smell. She stands around on the outside, hoping they won't cause unnecessary attention towards the locals around the area.

 

"Come out from wherever you are tengu, and grant my wish!"

 

"Why are you being so rude to the spirit Sougo, they're literally gonna kill us if you keep demanding things of them."

 

"It's fine, they can't kill him," Woz interjects.

 

"Yeah, it's gonna kill him and then us and no one will know because we're in a damn cave and we told no one."

 

"Are you streaming this?" Woz asks Sougo. He shakes his head.

 

"I edit them on my phone and post them so not really," and shrugs. "Reveal yourself to me tengu, I want to be a king! I hear you granted emperors their wishes and stuff back then."

 

"Shit," Woz says, walking right behind him. Geiz moves to intercept him but the two of them end up knocking shoulders and ending at the same place as Sougo halts.

 

"You realize Japan hasn't actually given an emperor powers to actually _do things_ in years Sougo?"

 

"So? this is a tengu, maybe he can be like 'oh yeah this constitutional monarchy stuff sucks, let's go back to that old stuff,' and grant me my wish?"

 

"I will let this tengu kill you and then I'm gonna use your little ghost hunting stuff to bring you back and then kill you again," Geiz responds. "This is the worst idea! It's not even real and I don't believe in spirits but if you're going to bait it, at least be _nice_ about it!"

 

A rustling in a shadowy corner of the cave has three beams of light swing at it. She had pushed herself closer to the entrance of the cave, looking for the nearest way out in case anything funny happened that she almost missed how Geiz and Woz had circled around Sougo protectively. The expanding of shadows has a wide wing on the cave, the three of the jumping in sync as Woz shouts.

 

"What the hell is that!"

 

"Nope," Geiz yells as he pulls Sougo to his chest and backs them closer. The wing extends and unfurls. A garbled noise that sounded like a cross between a squeak and purr, her own heart rate skyrocketing.

 

"Aw," Sougo says and tries to pull away from Geiz.

 

"Don't go to an animal you don't _know,"_ Woz hisses as he places his hand in front of Sougo's body, while Geiz still doesn't let him go.

 

"But it's cute," Sougo responds. She smacks her forehead.

 

"It can have disease," they both respond to him. Irritated, she stomps out of the cave with her flashlight, waiting for the others to come out as she sweeps her flashlight against the landscape. Sometimes, Sougo's cluelessness got on her nerves, and other terms it was endearing.  There's another noise that comes from the cave, the sound of nails scratching against stone that Geiz pushes Sougo and Woz out immediately as she switches her balance from feet to feet.

 

"Time to go,"  Geiz says, pulling Sougo behind him and pushing Woz out of the way. She immediately picks up her pace, running first to the car as Geiz continues to haul Sougo the way back to the car who seems to have jumped onto his back and tugging Woz with his other free hand. She can't help but let the hysterical laughter bubble in as she runs to the driver's side and start the engine, the others gasp quickly as they pile in, car doors slamming as she drives back home. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

He's not doing anything is the thing, Tsukoyomi notices. He's simply talking to Sougo, and sometimes it happens when they're not around but Woz is different around Sougo. He seems to be more present, if annoying. They're ahead of them, a few tables away while Sougo gestures back to them

 

"You should stop looking at him like that," Geiz says.

 

"Like what?" she looks sideways to him. He's done nothing but pick at her bento box remains, earning a slap on his hand. He lets out a sharp inhale, an affronted look playing as she shoves him to the side.

 

"Like you look like you want to murder," her responds to her. "Why do you want to help me beat up Woz? I know Woz leaving you didn't make you do what I did,"

 

"Girls are just stronger," she deflects. "I just want Sougo to have someone who cares about him and Woz isn't that person. He's not what a relationship can survive on. It'd be awful if he stopped smiling because of one person. It just doesn't matter to Woz, and it should."

 

"Right," Geiz nods, jabbing his finger in her food again to steal a riceball. She rolls her eyes and lets him. He nudges forward into her shoulder, earning a laughter as Sougo looks across to where her sound carried and smiles to them.

 

 

* * *

 

 

"I think we should all date," Sougo tells them unprompted. They're walking back to the temple on a weekend evening, the unofficial 'headquarters' of their demon and ghost hunting adventures that she stumbles a bit as he catches her. She turns back to Geiz who's looking like he's been caught in headlight. She’s smacking the EMF reader against her hand, as Sougo had said it was Tsukoyomi’s turn to be on camera this week. "Come on, I have something you guys will want to hear," he tugs her forward as Geiz is on his other side. They both look at each other behind his back, similar looks of bewilderment playing across their face.

 

The something is Woz, sitting with his arms crossed on the steps of the temple.

 

“So we talked,” Sougo begins as he walks forward. Her and Geiz stay a few feet away from them as Woz, leans back on the steps of the temple. “And I didn’t know he dated you too Tsukoyomi, that’s so weird, how did I not know that?” She gives a half hearted shrug gesture as he continues.

 

“And then Woz told me, and then Geiz also told me and I think I realize why you guys didn’t like it when he showed up to hang out with me. And I think I know what happened when Woz showed up and both of you were on me," he grins. "I really liked that but I didn't know how any of you would react if I said I wanted to date all of you. Dating one person is scary enough without adding three more. But I really like all of you! And it’s better now! I think we can make it work, if you want to try again.” He gestures to Woz. “Tell them what you told me." 

 

"I'm sorry that I broke your heart. Both of you,"  Woz looks at Tsukuyomi, who raises an eyebrow. "I can sometimes feel sincerity, Tsukoyomi, don't be surprised."

 

"I don't care about that, I care about the fact that you just disappeared on me without a word after 'we're through' like, what? You never came back," Geiz says.

 

"You didn’t trust us enough to tell us about yourself,” she folds her arms. He grimaces and mirrors her posture. "Yeah relationships are scary but no one likes feeling like an afterthought." 

 

“My dad is kind of a terrible man, and I don’t have friends usually. I don’t want people to know about that.”

 

“So a relationship with two strangers is how you try to make friends?” Woz shrugs, shoulder bunching up as his body looks coiled in the awkwardness and what looks like embarrassment filling his cheeks.

 

“I know why I disappeared on you two like that and it’s because I didn’t want to confront my mistakes,” he says drily. “But I do enjoy Sougo’s company and I can bear yours as well, even if it seems like you two are plotting my death.”

 

Geiz and her snort in unison as Woz looks to the side, not looking at any of them.

 

"So why don't we all try this together, and date one another?" Sougo says just as Geiz pulls him to press his lips against his. It's Sougo who pulls him closer, turning their kiss into something more despite the brief clacking of teeth. She steps forward to Woz and presses her hand to his cheek, pulling him towards her to hug briefly. Woz, still, slowly extends his arms around her middle before they break apart. Sougo then breaks away from Geiz, a deep inhale as he pulls her and Woz closer to him, pressing flutter light kisses against their lips. The four of them stand together in a circle while the forgotten EMF meter beeps, almost as if it agreed with their arrangement.

**Author's Note:**

> some assorted notes:  
> \- the working title of this was "hey ghouls, the boys are here"  
> \- the dish tsukoyomi comes to see her family make is yakisoba  
> \- the bat creature is a japanese flying fox


End file.
